The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for heating by the use of a laser beam. The method and apparatus of the present invention are particularly useful for utilizing a laser beam for cutting purposes, and are therefore described below with respect to this application.
Lasers are now widely used in a large variety of heating or cutting applications, such as surgical scalpels, workpiece cutters, and the like. One of the problems in such heating or cutting applications is to concentrate the heat energy of the laser to predetermined points of the object to be heated without overly heating surrounding portions of the object.